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I think perhaps you misunderstood my statement but I appreciate your invitation to discuss it elsewhere. I hope it's ok here. My superscript is interspersed:
As an old school journalist/writer (before the pundits inundated the internet, well actually before the internet) I believed journalistic integrity was of the utmost importance. I also employed a common sense realist approach that was surpassed only by my skepticism. Sorry, but I cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the legal profession and insurance industry built empires on medical malpractice. You focused only on the MJ case which, on the flip side, was a gross oversimplification but let's just chalk it off to brevity and be done with it. I'm not trying to lessen the importance of science or mainstream medical opinion, the latter of which was actually one of my beefs with a few editors who kept misrepresenting my intent. However, we cannot ignore the fact that big pharma dangles (💰) in front of medical practitioners and researchers all the time. They are also relentless in their attempts to bypass laws and the FDA which was part of my reason for including the off-label prescription article. The number of times big pharma has been convicted and fined for illegal activity is also significant but none of this is really in my area of interest. The world has changed and values we once held in the highest regard, such as journalistic integrity and the Hippocratic Oath, have all but fallen by the wayside, [4]. Granted, alternative medicine practitioners don't undergo the extensive schooling and training of MDs but they do have some licensing and regulatory requirements as exampled below:
- In all 50 states and the District of Columbia, chiropractors must be an accredited Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) and must pass special state exams, exams administered by the NBCE, or both.
- Only 17 states and the District of Columbia license naturopathic physicians. In general, licensure requires graduating from an accredited 4-year naturopathic school and passing a postdoctoral board examination.
- Most states regulate massage therapists by requiring a license, registration, or certification. However training standards and requirements for massage therapists vary greatly by state and locality, but most states that regulate massage therapists require a minimum of 500 hours of training. [5]
Your comment about professional standards and the like is what led me to this information. Atsme ☎️ 📧 22:35, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
MastCell, thank you for your response, and for the book recommendation. I'll check it out. You said, After all, you brought up the evils of Big Pharma in response to my attempt to draw a distinction between physicians and homeopaths. Right? No, actually, not quite. I had just seen an article about criminal actions filed against some of the big pharmaceutical companies, and couldn't understand why there aren't a whole bunch of CEOs spending time behind bars. You had also mentioned professional standards and that you weren't aware if alt-med practitioners (like homeopathy) were held to as high a standard, so I looked it up for you and posted the results. I have no clue who you are professionally so I'm not aware of what you are exposed to on a daily basis or I would have been more careful to not inundate you with more of the same. I am very happy to hear that you are suspicious of tort reform - it's the worst thing that could happen in the US because all it does is hurt victims worse than what they've already been hurt. If we must have tort reform it needs to focus on the frivolous lawsuits filed by prison inmates every year: [6]. -- Atsme 📞 📧 01:53, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
As to professional standards, the mere existence of licensing bodies means nothing. I can form a licensing body tomorrow and incorporate it tomorrow, and then start licensing people to use crystal energy to cure cancer. The real question is how these licensing bodies operate. Do they have an investigative arm to handle complaints? Do they hand down sanctions for unprofessional conduct? Are they publicly accountable? For example, you can go to pretty much any state medical board and find a mechanism to handle public complaints, a a clear description of how complaints are handled, and a full and public listing of disciplinary actions taken. (I used the Michigan Medical Board website, but you can pick a state of your choosing). Do the boards you mentioned provide this level of oversight and accountability? Because licensing alone doesn't mean anything without some sort of enforcement of professional standards. MastCell Talk 21:21, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
MastCell - I really do want to learn both sides of the argument and hope you will be generous enough of your time to help me understand. The questions you posed motivated me to do the research in that direction (in between laptop crashes and having to work on my iPad). I came across the following and was hoping you could provide input with regards to the organization: [7]. Legit from your perspective, or not? -- Atsme 📞 📧 20:49, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
State medical boards are in charge of issuing medical licenses to physicians, and the ultimate sanction that they can impose is to revoke a physician's medical license. For a physician, this is basically equivalent to being excommunicated from the profession, so it's a serious sanction. But since alt-med practitioners don't have medical licenses in the first place, the FSMB and state medical boards can't regulate them. The CAM guidelines apply to physicians who choose to offer complementary modalities as part of the their practices. (The document to which you linked makes this clear; it states upfront that it applies to physicians who either use CAM themselves or who work in partnership with CAM practitioners).
If that's tl;dr, the short version is: no, CAM practitioners are most definitely not regulated by the FSMB or by state medical boards, unless they also happen to be licensed physicians. MastCell Talk 03:38, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, MastCell. Your explanation was well-received on my end, and your time and patience are much appreciated. -- Atsme 📞 📧 18:57, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
It appears someone may have created the account User:MasfCeII to impersonate you. Do you think that is the case? Everymorning talk 02:37, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Hello. The proposed decision for the American politics 2 arbitration case, which you are listed to as a party, has been posted. Thank you, -- L235 ( t / c / ping in reply) via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 03:32, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Hi MastCell! I came across this and realized it hadn't been updated for awhile. Would you mind sharing how you generated the list? I'd be interested in keeping it updated as a subpage of WP:MED. Thanks! :) Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH) ( talk) 19:43, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
import mwclient
import sys
wp = mwclient.Site('en.wikipedia.org')
wpmed_template = wp.Pages'Template:WikiProject Medicine'
url_usage_list = wp.exturlusage("*.dailymail.co.uk", namespace=0)
dailymail_links = set()
for dm_link in url_usage_list:
dailymail_links.add(dm_link'title'])
sys.stdout.write('.')
print "\nFinished collecting Daily Mail links..."
wpmed_articles = set()
for link in wpmed_template.backlinks():
wpmed_articles.add(link.page_title)
sys.stdout.write('.')
print "\nFinished collecting WP:MED articles..."
link_articles = wpmed_articles.intersection(dailymail_links)
print "Performed intersection operation..."
print "Identified %d WP:MED articles with Daily Mail links..." % len(link_articles)
print "Listing them:"
for link in link_articles:
print "* [[%s]]" % link
Hi MastCell - I've been doing my homework and believe I have a pretty good handle on how MEDRS works now thanks to your input here and at various TP and noticeboards. There is a discussion at Project Medicine regarding Kombucha (which is subject to DS) wherein I posed a few questions to Doc James who confirmed what I believed to be true regarding the sourcing of extraordinary claims. Unfortunately, despite the lengthy discussions at both Proj Med and the article TP, the editing conflicts continue primarily as a result of tendentious editing, repeated reverts by the regular CAM-haters due to the product's claims of health benefits, and the result is noncompliance with MEDRS, V, NPOV and UNDUE. Extraordinary claims have been made in the article linking consumption of kombucha products to toxicity and death based on a handful of anecdotal random (and rare) case reports (most of which date back to the 90s) but because those case reports are cited to RS (books) that published those same reports, the reverters believe they are correct. Moreover, attempts to add factually accurate information using intext attribution from a 2014 review are also being reverted.
The highest quality source regarding kombucha is a 2014 review in Comprehensive Review in Food Science and Food Safety published by the Institute of Food Technologies. Their conclusion states:
Also, a 2013 article by Scott Gavura at Science Based Medicine concluded:
Considering there is a very small number of random case reports (most, if not all, of which are included in the 2014 review) all lacking in conclusive scientific evidence for causality, it appears to me the claims should be considered FRINGE per MEDRS, therefore not included in the lead but possibly mentioned in the body as long as it isn't given undue weight, correct? We should also use in-text attribution from the highest quality sources (the 2014 Review) that are up-to-date (not more than 5 yrs old). I don't see why Kombucha (natural ingredients) shouldn't receive the same consideration as articles like Red Bull (which is full of chemical additives) with regards to inconclusive case reports linking death and toxicity to the beverage. Your advice and attention to this matter will be greatly appreciated. -- Atsme 📞 📧 16:08, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:
For the Arbitration Committee, L235 ( t / c / ping in reply) via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 19:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
Dropped you a note to your WP email address over the weekend (sent directly instead of through Special:EmailUser/MastCell, so I hope it's still your account). Not urgent, so feel free to respond whenever you have time. NW ( Talk) 01:36, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps it wouldn't matter. Nonetheless this was not far from happening a few months ago (RfA vote was split until the candidate withdrew). Personally I would regard belief in homeopathy to be a symptom of deeper issues. Such a believer would probably be in conflict with several of Wikipedia's core policies and principles, either knowingly or unknowingly.
There is a mantra that admins don't make content decisions, but in some cases they effectively do, though in practice it usually amounts to just keeping nonsense out of Wikipedia. If an editor is consistently making edits that are in clear violation of WP:PSCI, and other avenues of dealing with the editor have been exhausted, then an admin may apply discretionary sanctions. But wait -- how did the admin know that the edits violate WP:PSCI? An admin has to "get it", so to speak. My fear is that one day an admin who doesn't get it (such as a homeopathy advocate) will wield discretionary sanctions, making determinations that are opposite to what others would make.
(There's no particular reason I'm ranting here rather than elsewhere, except that I assume you know where I'm coming from.) Manul ~ talk 01:44, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
Everymorning, "deeper issues" was merely a segue into the next sentence, which suggested exactly what your response indicates: that you are in conflict with Wikipedia's policies. It would appear that your motivation for adding these sources to the homeopathy article is found here: I often wonder if any amount of evidence would suffice to overturn or at least credibly challenge the "consensus" that homeopathy doesn't work.
It would appear that you are attempting to use Wikipedia as a tool for challenging the scientific consensus on homeopathy, which would be a misuse of Wikipedia. That you put "consensus" in quotes is alarming, the kind of evidence one would include in an AE request for a topic ban.
I don't mean to be harsh. Really. Ultimately I blame the educational system. Nobody should leave high school (I noticed your birthdate on your user page) without having some understanding about the distinction between science and pseudoscience. Not knowing can be deadly, literally. WP:FRINGE and related PAGs tend to be somewhat unapprehended for those lacking exposure to the demarcation problem. Whatever you do, please don't take the path of simply labeling others biased, parlaying ignorance into prejudice. Seek to understand the issue instead -- read The Philosophy of Pseudoscience or Nonsense on Stilts or whatever floats your boat. Manul ~ talk 03:42, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
← TenOfAllTrades speaks wisely, but I'd like to dig a little deeper into this question of the evidence on homeopathy, and how to interpret it. It's an excellent case study in Bayesian probability, clinical-trial interpretation, and common conceptual pitfalls in parsing clinical evidence. In fact, it's an example that I use didactically when I teach about these subjects. Let's start with a simple and (for now) hypothetical example.
There is a mathematical solution to this problem, of course, and we can talk about how to derive it. But the central point is qualitative. @ Everymorning: I'd like to hear your thoughts. MastCell Talk 23:50, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
MastCell's comment illustrates how the extent to which you consider homeopathy plausible hugely influences the way you view the clinical trial evidence. But as Johnson et al. noted, "Basic science research appears to suggest that the use of extremely dilute solutions may not be as implausible as has been claimed." [15] Everymorning (talk) 11:58, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
The fundamental cognitive error here—which I was trying to outline in my example above as well—is that you're treating the "homeopathy works" evidence and the "homeopathy is nonsense" evidence as if they're equally valid a priori. They're not. The former is an incredibly far-fetched extraordinary claim, which would overturn much of modern physics, chemistry, and pharmacology. You would need an exceptionally strong evidence base to even consider making that sort of claim credibly. In contrast, the view that homeopathy-is-nonsense is entirely consistent with multiple lines of evidence and basic, well-established laws of nature. It's like saying that the moon is not made of green cheese.
You can't apply the same level of scrutiny to those two claims and believe whichever one produces the better p values. I know that sounds like how science works, but it's not. What you're doing is more like rolling a 1d20 and deciding to believe in magical water if you happen to roll a 1. (Actually, it's more like rolling 20d20, and then pretending that only the rolls of 1 exist—this is the effect of publication bias and various other experimental biases in the homeopathy literature). There are useful summaries of this concept here and here (more technical), an explanation of why it's unscientific to test a completely implausible hypothesis in a randomized clinical trial here, and a specific deconstruction of the low quality of "basic science" research supporting homeopathy here. MastCell Talk 17:15, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
I suggest that MastCell and the other editors watching this page look up the research of Anisur Khuda-Bukhsh and Paolo Bellavite. I'm not saying it will change your mind about homeopathy being nonsense, but their research does indicate that there are at least a few scientists who consider it a topic worthy of studying. Everymorning (talk) 01:07, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Since you started this whole "Respect secondary sources" thing, I am inviting you to look at this Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)/FAQ#So if primary sources can be used in rare cases, what are those rare cases? and see if you can help expand the list.
(At some point we really do need to deal with the toxicology problem. As far as I can tell, there aren't any Cochrane reviews on LD50 levels, and that's still appropriate and encyclopedic information that we should be including.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 00:26, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm thinking about this again. Is there anything about respecting secondary sources that is specifically about verifiability (narrowly defined), or is it really a DUE issue? It's possible that I'll start a draft of MEDDUE sometime this decade, and I need to figure out how to separate the two concepts. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:29, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
I fully ref'd that modest edition to the CNN article. How can it be a BLP violation? Capitalismojo ( talk) 16:12, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
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The Barnstar of Diplomacy |
Well deserved. MONGO 03:51, 6 September 2015 (UTC) |
I'm saddened that you used your oppose vote to berate me, and I wonder if you have any idea of the sheer volume of attacks Montanabw made against me this year. She followed me everywhere I went, tried to recruit others to do the same, and smeared my reputation at every turn. I probably can never recover from the lies she spread about me, but I never bothered to collect all the diffs, because they made me sick to my stomach, and I just about quit Wikipedia to avoid her. Here's just the ones she made at my talk ( [19]), after having been asked politely many times to stay away. I lost count of how many times she accused me of being a sock, but she never opened an SPI like she should have. Here's a sample of what she considered evidence against me: ( [20]), ( [21]), and here's an example of her terrible judgement in general when it comes to socks: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ZuluPapa5/Archive. No matter how many people asked her to stop, she just kept coming. In fact at least nine editors asked her to leave me alone, but she persisted for months (diff available upon request).
I might have gone too far at the RfA, but if I did so it was less out of vindictiveness and more out of sincere concern for the community. The beginning was staged and timed to provide minimal challenge, and had others asked her difficult questions about her problematic behavioral patterns I would have stepped back sooner. Yes. She has lots of good qualities, but none of them pertain to adminship. I too hope she continues to create content and doesn't quit after this failed attempt, but until she stops taking sides and stalking people she is a terrible candidate for the block button, as bad as any I've seen here. RO (talk) 18:16, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
And this recent oppose: ( [22]) comes from yet another editor who MBW harassed. In this case, for a full year! RO (talk) 20:22, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for taking such a generous, civil tone in the Talk section that you and I are communicating across. It seems to me that you might have maneuvered through these kinds of discussions before... SocraticOath ( talk) 19:42, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
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The Admin's Barnstar |
I have participated on nearly 300 RfA and I know how hard it sometimes can be to make a decision. Your comment here is probably the most objective, thoughtful, and well expressed I've ever seen. Thank you. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:00, 22 September 2015 (UTC) |
The Spinningspark RFAR has been closed as declined, and I've annotated jps's log myself. (For talkpage stalkers: this message is in reference to this discussion on my page.) Bishonen | talk 14:48, 16 October 2015 (UTC).
You say on Jimbo's talk page (diff):
Let's start by acknowledging the obvious: no serious, reputable reference work on Earth would allow a member of a corporation's PR team to play a substantial role in drafting coverage of that corporation. That would be out of the question. The fact that this role is undisclosed to the casual reader makes the situation even worse.
and
If a reference work routinely allows a company's PR staff to play a substantial and undisclosed (to the casual reader) role in developing coverage of that company, I'd be very hesitant to extend credibility to that reference work.
In light of that, can you act on these edits (diff)? I've warned the user multiple times, to no avail. -- Elvey( t• c) 22:57, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
Update: Someone started a discussion here at COIN (diff) / WP:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Cleveland_Clinic. -- Elvey( t• c) 01:17, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
I feel strongly that accounts connected with the Cleveland Clinic (or any other such institution) should not be monitoring and "correcting" article content. Nor should our encyclopedic coverage of an institution be written largely or solely by that institution's PR department. These accounts should be restricted to making suggestions on the talkpage. Our conflict-of-interest guideline is quite clear about this, but no one pays any attention.
At the same time, I'm not interested in intervening here. For one thing, the community is utterly clueless about COI (in some cases out of well-meaning ignorance, and in some cases for less charitable reasons). That cluelessness extends all the way up to ArbCom, so getting involved in addressing a COI complaint isn't appealing. More to the point, I work in medicine and, while I don't work at the Cleveland Clinic, I have personal and professional connections there, as I do at a number of academic medical centers. For that reason, I generally avoid editing articles about these institutions, as a matter of practicing what I preach. Good luck, though. MastCell Talk 15:57, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi {user:MastCell}, I recently came across a clinical guideline written about inducing fetal demise that mentions the incidence of unintended live birth in abortion patients, including D&E patients. Would you be willing to use the reference to add words to the [Abortion] article answering the question, "When does unintended live birth happen?" This is the publication: http://www.societyfp.org/_documents/resources/InductionofFetalDemise.pdf Thanks! - 146.23.3.250 ( talk) 16:16, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
You are terribly biased and to prove it I will share a diff of you taking the opposite position of the one you're supposed to be biased towards. O-kay then. -- JBL ( talk) 21:25, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
For some reason, it looks like I forgot to actually post to your talk page. There's a current unblock request at User_talk:Johnpacklambert#Second_Unblock_Request that seems to meet your requirements. Would an unblock or reduction in block length be acceptable? Keep in mind that actual arbitration enforcement could be used if the problematic behavior continues now that the user has been warned. -- slakr\ talk / 15:15, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for this. I hope no small forest creatures were harmed after you read those edit summaries :) The best way to catch one is to cut a hole in the ice and place peas around the perimeter. Then when he comes to take a pea you kick him in the ice hole. — ArtifexMayhem ( talk) 12:10, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
...but I did notice your comments here about my old RfA and went back to the bit you linked. I am sincerely curious about the issue (access to the block button) that tipped the balance for you and how to address that concern, which was echoed by a number of other people. I do plan to try again, probably in the spring, so how do I, in essence, prove a negative? While some of the other reasons folks !voted oppose were legit complaints, this is the #1 problem I don't know how to address - because it's not a problem! I said up front in my original statements that I truly believe in recusal where I would be involved, but how can I convince folks of what is a sincerely held value when it's a power I am asking for, not one I've used. Is there some way I can create an analogous track record or create a "contract" with other editors? One solution I thought of was to have an on-wiki list on a subpage of editors who I would not act upon based on prior content editing interactions (good and bad) but some might think that's an "enemies list". Another idea would be to be open to recall, but recall is totally voluntary and so in reality I think it is just drama fodder. Given that you and I will, most likely, disagree sometimes, perhaps strongly, yet I think you would agree that there is a desperate need for adult admins who have a lot of content editing experience, how could someone like me reassure someone like you on this issue? What are your thoughts? Montanabw (talk) 00:41, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Honestly, if you ran again I would probably support you. Every passing month I'm more depressed about the lack of sane adults here. You are a sane adult. I think the concerns have been communicated, and you've heard them, and I think (being that you're a sane adult) you'll bear them in mind. I can't speak to how to reassure others; RfA is an unpredictable process. The only thing I'd suggest is tackling the issue upfront in your next request for adminship. Acknowledging the concern goes a long way toward defusing it, and it's better to do it upfront; it's very hard to respond and be heard over the din once the actual RfA picks up steam. Best of luck and happy holidays. :) MastCell Talk 01:30, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
Here: [25] Jdontfight ( talk) 20:33, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
OK, you are one of the MEDRS gurus, and I would value input from a neutral person who hasn't been involved in this situation: I am trying to work out some difficulties at several animal- and equine-therapy articles. I feel that what I am presenting is being dismissed out of hand. Discussion is all over the place, (two user talk pages, the fringe theories noticeboard and five different articles) but the summary of the drama is here. I actually DO want to have properly balanced articles with good sources. But the usual personal attacks (I'm "owning" articles, blah, blah) are not exactly creating a collaborative environment. I actually agree with some of the other editors' assertions that the articles need improvement, but my concern is replacing one set of weak reasoning (breathless promotionalism) with another (it's all is "bogus" and "pseudoscience"). Equine-assisted therapies have legitimate concerns that studies have not been particularly well-designed, but I am concerned that the entire field of animal-assisted therapy is somehow being dismissed as having "no good evidence" to support that it is beneficial. (Obviously, some claims are pretty well established, but others are flaky; I get that). I'm particularly trying to figure out how to handle the equine-assisted psychotherapy topic (the medical benefits of therapeutic horseback riding are somewhat better studied and I think there is actual progress happening on that article). At this point, the discussion probably has come down to how we use MEDRS and related guidelines-- particularly when there are still mostly preliminary, early studies with the "more research needed" tag. Specifically, how do we use a fairly negative meta-analysis that looked at 14 studies (and they legitimately found problems, but I also think the writers nonetheless hit the panic button with their conclusions) against a broader and more favorable literature review that looked at 47 studies; and both referenced an earlier review of 14 studies that reached a cautiously optimistic conclusion. (FWIW, [27], [28] and [29] I'll end this now, it's getting tl;dr. Any input will probably help. Montanabw (talk) 09:55, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
Accepting arguendo your characterization of Rubio's position (which I believe is mostly true), I thought I might try, perhaps vainly, to help you comprehend the incomprehensible: Disagreement with a portion of X does not constitute disagreement with all of X. The strength of the connection between human activity and climate change is a portion of the modern scientific understanding of climate change, but it is does not constitute the entire such understanding. Therefore, I would have no problem with a statement that "Rubio believes that part of the modern understanding of climate change is unproven." None at all. And a statement that "Rubio believes that part of the modern understanding of climate change is false" would be, to me, pushing the envelope slightly, but only slightly. But the actual statement in the article is another matter altogether. That's the problem. CometEncke ( talk) 22:05, 19 January 2016 (UTC) Also, I put this in the edit summary, but I want to put it into the edit -- this is not intended as a nastygram. It's simply an explanation. My experience with threaded discussion in RfC's is that it is worse than useless. So I'm putting it here. CometEncke ( talk) 22:07, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
(Separately, Rubio is in an interesting political position with regard to climate change. He backed a cap-and-trade proposal back in 2008 or so, when the Republican Party was more open to the reality of climate change, and at a time when cap-and-trade was part of Republican orthodoxy. But then Obama embraced cap-and-trade and, predictably, it went from the Republicans' favored public-policy solution to absolute anathema. Now Rubio has to distance himself from his 2008 support of climate change, much like Romney in 2012 had to distance himself from his earlier advocacy for health-insurance mandates—which underwent a similar rapid transition from Republican orthodoxy to anathema. I'm not sure whether these were intentional strategies on Obama's part, but they've definitely put many of the Republican candidates in an awkward situation. But I digress). MastCell Talk 00:45, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
I was wondering if I could bounce some thoughts off you? I've seen that you've been involved in climate change and other science articles that can get a bit controversial. In many of those articles, a statement that there's a scientific consensus always seems to draw a huge push from those wanting to support the fringe point of view claiming there isn't a consensus. We get into behavior territory when editors consistently try to push those points of views pretty well characterized by WP:ADVOCACY to the point it's a significant drain on other editors. That's tough to manage from an admin or ArbCom perspective because it's behavior closely tied to content instead of personal attacks, etc. that are more obvious to those uninvolved.
If we do end up at ArbCom with GMO-2 (which I hope we don't) I'd like to potentially set up a proposal for dealing with this nuance (decent chance of flopping, but worth addressing). I've been thinking that the climate change cases would have some good precedent on how they deal with this specific kind of behavior related to scientific consensus and general advocacy. There's a lot to sort through though, and I haven't found centralized discussion on this as most cases and remedies deal with long hanging fruit like battleground, personal attacks, etc. Are you aware of any focused cases on this or someone else I should ask that has some good history and recall in the topic? No worries if you don't. Thanks. Kingofaces43 ( talk) 19:47, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Hello MastCell you recently topic banned me. However you base your decision on, as you wrote:
pattern of disruptive editing on the part of Prokaryotes is clear and continuing. This pattern includes disruptive stonewalling on talkpages, misuse of sourcing guidelines, edit-warring, personal attacks, and so on
Besides EdJonhnson suggested 3-7 day ban, without my 1RR revert. I am unaware of disruptive editing, what you call stonewalling, sourcing guidelines, edit warring, and personal attacks. As long as i am on Wikipedia i was never accused of a personal attack, stonewalling, or misuse of sourcing guidelines. Also you are the first to claim my edits are disruptive or that i edit war in the current talk page discussion. Therefore i ask you to provide difs so i can follow up on your reasoning. And because i think you are wrong, therefore ask you to reconsider your admin decision at Arbcom. Thanks. prokaryotes ( talk) 21:02, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
The edit-warring is obvious; among other things, you violated the 1RR restriction and then, when called on it, responded combatively by attacking other editors on the page rather than acknowledging the error (to your credit, you ultimately chose to self-revert after being urged to do so). There was evidence presented, primarily by Tryptofish, in the case request of your inappropriate and tendentious approach to sourcing. I believe you when you say you are "unaware" that you are doing these things, which is a big part of the problem. I don't see any evidence that you have insight into why your editing causes problems, despite getting that feedback from ArbCom, from your fellow editors, from admins, and so on. All of those things, taken together, led me to issue the topic ban.
Given the behavioral issues in this topic area, we should be demanding and expecting best behavior from its editors, rather than making endless excuses for them. I don't think it's even anywhere near a borderline call to say that you have been a long-standing negative influence in the topic area. That is not to say you're the only editor contributing to the problem, but your presence has clearly worsened the situation at virtually every turn. Hence the topic ban. You are welcome to raise the issue with other admins or at WP:AE, and I'll go along if others think the sanction was disproportionate. But your defense—which basically boils down to refusing to admit the existence of any concerns about your editing, ever—is not exactly persuasive. MastCell Talk 01:53, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
"… and to help shoulder the workload, which is among the most challenging on Wikipedia". [33] Tell me about it. The technicalities, which one would think ought to be nothing, the weight of a feather, are vultures hacking at the liver, they're malignant living things. Check out this. You don't have to find the time and wherewithal to respond thoughtfully, just scream. Bishonen | talk 21:23, 5 February 2016 (UTC).
← What's happening now, in the WP:AN thread on Prokaryotes' appeal, is a perfect illustration of the problem. The appeal itself is a foregone conclusion: when has a deeply entrenched battleground editor ever passed up a chance to argue? At a glance, about 80% of the verbiage in the appeal comes from partisan GMO editors, most of whom already had their say at disruptive and disputatious length in the original WP:AE thread. There is uninvolved input, but it's hard to see amid the same yelling from the same people.
I suppose I should go defend myself, but I really don't want to. I don't want to reward this system. This is why admins don't act on WP:AE, and why they especially avoid decisive action on difficult cases involving entrenched battleground editors. Prokaryotes and his enablers will never give up on fighting this. I will be responding to appeals for the foreseeable future, and defending myself against all manner of poorly-thought-out and unsupported accusations. If I choose not to respond (the most reasonable choice, I think, in the circumstances), then I'll be accused of failing to be "accountable". You can see that one GMO partisan, Minor4th, already raised the specter of hauling me in front of ArbCom to pay for the crime of sanctioning Prokaryotes.
The charge of acting unilaterally is particularly laughable; the thread sat open for more than a week with no other admin input, and I finally closed it out of a sense of fairness to both the accuser and the accused (they deserve speedier resolution of the complaint). If I wanted to act unilaterally, then I wouldn't have begged for other admins to comment and then left the thread open for more than a week. I don't know why any sane person would want to deal with this system as it exists now. MastCell Talk 20:24, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I've also seen a lot of arguing about people exceeding the word limit in ArbCom cases. These arguments seem to spring from the misconception that more words are inherently more convincing. Personally, I've always found the reverse to be true. We don't really need clerks to enforce word limits; the penalty for writing walls of text is that people stop paying attention to what you have to say.
Regarding the open cases, I don't think I'm directly "involved" with CFCF, but we do overlap in a lot of topic areas (as well as on WP:MEDRS), so I'm leaving it for someone else. Likewise, I don't think I'm formally "involved" with SageRad, but since his main motivation for coming to Wikipedia was perpetuate a feud with David Gorski by inserting BLP violations into his biography, I steer clear and let others handle him. MastCell Talk 15:58, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the link - it has inspired me to dig in and start reviewing my stats! EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' ( talk) 01:45, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
← @ EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin': Since we're talking statistics, I was curious to quantify exactly how badly the homeopaths did on this multiple-choice test. At right is a simple binomial distribution modeling the outcomes if one were to simply guess randomly on the stats quiz that was administered to the homeopaths. (There were 20 questions; nine of them had 5 possible answers, and the remaining eleven had 4 possible answers, so the overall probability of guessing the correct answer on a given question is 0.2275).
The homeopaths, as a group, got 5% of the questions right (that is, 1 out of 20). As you can see from the binomial distribution, if one were simply guessing at random on every question, there's only a 3.9% chance of doing that badly (in other words, the cumulative probability of getting 0 or 1 answer correct is 0.03946).
In layman's terms, when it comes to tests of statistical know-how and sophistication, a homeopath will lose to a random-number generator 96% of the time. Put another way, when a statistical question arises, you would be much better off trusting a random-number generator or a coin flip than trusting a homeopath. MastCell Talk 19:54, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Greetings. I've just moved the File:Koebner.jpg to File:Heinrich Köbner.jpg to unshadow the Commons file. That said there is a page in your userpage which is fully protected linking to the old filename. You may want to update the filelink so that it doesn't point at the wrong image. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 17:37, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Meet the internet hoax buster – "Now you can go to Wikipedia and become an expert on an ailment in 20 minutes. Then you go online and instantly find a supportive community." What a service! . . dave souza, talk 21:28, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
A happy addition to WP, but I think could use your love and might be of interest to you. Was recently created by Sunrise. Jytdog ( talk) 18:42, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Actually, if I were feeling puckish, I'd just redirect social psychology and Daryl Bem to the article on p-value fallacy... that would say it all. :P MastCell Talk 20:36, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Many thanks for bringing that little episode to a resolution. Since you expressed a willingness to tease apart the issue between Volunteer Marek and Solnsta90, and address the revenge edits/hounding if you can find the time, I thought I might tell you that Marek and Dave Dial have discussed this issue at some length at User talk:Drmies. I also raised the issue myself with Drmies, just before I saw that you had taken action at ANI, because the sheer amount of disruption caused by what should have been a simple sock blocking (had it been raised in the right way) makes me share Drmies' disposition that this might be ArbCom bound. Anyway, thought you might want to be aware of Marek and Dave's diffs on the talk page, but I know quite happily wash my hands of this nasty little affair. Snow let's rap 20:29, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
I saw WP:Requests for undeletion/Archive 223#Einstein Syndrome I weighed in at the DRV.
I noticed something in the restored deletion history. You both were the nominator at the article's only AFD -- and you were the administrator who speedy deleted a version of that article as G4.
When I looked at the revision history it seems to show the version you deleted was rewritten, from scratch. Diff says forty contributors made 77 edits to the article.
I think you are fully entitled to reach the conclusion that the second version, rewritten from scratch, had all the same weaknesses that caused you to call for the first version to be deleted -- but that your best choices would have been to, first, raise your concerns on the talk page, only then initiate a second afd. I may be incorrect, but I strongly suspect that just about everyone will agree you should not have speedy deleted a G4, when you were the original nominator.
I am going to ping @ Lectonar:, who wrote, at DRV: "I always read G4 as being applicable when the new article was near enough the old article as to have (virtually) the some content; that is what I saw here." Lectonar also speedy deleted a version of this article, as did @ Liz: and @ Favonian:. Geo Swan ( talk) 21:37, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
I don't remember anything about the article. If I deleted it under G4, then you can be sure that it appeared to me to be, in substance, a copy of the previously and properly deleted article from the time of the AfD. I don't agree with your assessment of the administrative role; if an article is properly deleted at AfD, and then recreated in substantially similar form, then any admin may speedy-delete it under G4, regardless of whether they participated in or closed the AfD. It would help if you distinguished "I don't agree with your application of G4" from "you have NO RIGHT to apply G4!", because those are different arguments, and one is much more plausible than the other.
Anyway, you presumably got what you wanted—the article was restored. So you probably have better things to do than to badger me over a difference of opinion about a speedy deletion from 3 years ago (like, maybe, improving the restored article, which badly needs it). And I definitely have better things to do than to be badgered. MastCell Talk 07:04, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
The encyclopedia project for sane, constructive, marginally mature, well-socialized editors. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 19:39, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi MastCell. In accordance with an arbitrator's request by email, I have
removed a portion of your statement at an arbitration case request that contains a personal attack, and you are also advised that under the
arbitration policy, the arbitration clerks
have the authority to impose sanctions for conduct on arbitration pages, and warned that continued personal attacks may lead to sanctions. Appeal of this removal or warning may be made to clerks-llists.wikimedia.org or arbcom-l
lists.wikimedia.org. Thanks.
Kevin (aka
L235 ·
t ·
c)
01:03, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Someone created endometrial cups, which is a useful article to have, but it was a stub. I added refs and expanded it, but because my background in medical terminology is not that extensive, some of the source material was gibberish to me. Would value your popping by and seeing if my use of source material was accurate (trying to not closely paraphrase but still be accurate can be a bugbear on these articles) and if the content in general is phrased properly. I've also pinged a couple other editors with medical backgrounds, but thought of you because of the thing about how these cells behave a bit like metastatic tumors. Also, the article on Equine chorionic gonadotropin might need some work. I'm unclear if there is a direct connection to human medicine here, but that's also why I'm pinging the experts. Have at it. Montanabw (talk) 14:53, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others. The scope of this case is Gamaliel's recent actions (both administrative and otherwise), especially related to the Signpost April Fools Joke. The case will also examine the conduct of other editors who are directly involved in disputes with Gamaliel. The case is strictly intended to examine user conduct and alleged policy violations and will not examine broader topic areas. The clerks have been instructed to remove evidence which does not meet these requirements. The drafters will add additional parties as required during the case. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others/Evidence.
Please add your evidence by May 2, 2016, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. This notification is being sent to those listed on the case notification list. If you do not wish to recieve further notifications, you are welcome to opt-out on that page. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 13:39, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
I'm not going to keep posting there tonight as I'm bordering on disruptive. Although I feel like I'm challenging established thought patterns, I can see how others feel it's disruption. Can you point out which aspect of Gamaliel's actions were actually DHeyward's fault? Was it the original "April Fools" joke? The userbox? Reverting at ANI? Reverting at Signpost? Removing the CSD tag? Which part of it did DHeyward make Gamaliel do? All of it? Because if anyone is going to make the argument that Gamaliel was so provoked by DHeyward's actions that he couldn't control himself, then they've also made an argument for why Gamaliel is, and was, WP:involved. Once you cross the line of emotional attachment to a topic, you're no longer enforcing just Wikipedia's policies. There is no way to argue that Gamaliel was provoked by DHeyward and argue that he is uninvolved. That's not possible.--v/r - T P 04:21, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
I don't pretend to have followed the case closely (every time I start to read it, I despair for humanity), but it seems pretty straightforward: a couple of editors winding each other up and behaving childishly. I don't see that any lasting (or even temporary) harm was done to the project, so the reaction seems disproportionate, to say the least. The discourse on the case pages exhibits some of the absolute worst qualities of the Wikipedia "community": lazy knee-jerk conspiracism, sanctimonious hypocrisy, and the lack of anything resembling a sense of perspective. MastCell Talk 21:13, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Which brings me to my concern. If gamergate is not being considered in this Arbcase, then why is DHeyward involved? The only reason I can see is if DHeyward's gamergate behavior would be used to argue that Gamaliel was baited. But if that's the case, then why is gamergate material only be considered when it benefits Gamaliel? Do you now see my concern?--v/r - T P 01:52, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
(To be clear, this isn't aimed at you. I've always found you to be thoughtful and willing to discuss anything, and to reconsider your views. I also think you always try to do the right thing, and I have a lot of respect for you. I just don't feel like talking about this case anymore). MastCell Talk 04:28, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
I read your list of articles days ago which is where my "I'd be very interested in what types of BLPs the community finds it acceptable to mock" comes from. Do you have any BLPs that are not conservatives that we mock frequently? Because aside from this, I'm looking again at Campaign for "santorum" neologism.--v/r - T P 17:27, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 40 | ← | Archive 43 | Archive 44 | Archive 45 | Archive 46 |
I think perhaps you misunderstood my statement but I appreciate your invitation to discuss it elsewhere. I hope it's ok here. My superscript is interspersed:
As an old school journalist/writer (before the pundits inundated the internet, well actually before the internet) I believed journalistic integrity was of the utmost importance. I also employed a common sense realist approach that was surpassed only by my skepticism. Sorry, but I cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the legal profession and insurance industry built empires on medical malpractice. You focused only on the MJ case which, on the flip side, was a gross oversimplification but let's just chalk it off to brevity and be done with it. I'm not trying to lessen the importance of science or mainstream medical opinion, the latter of which was actually one of my beefs with a few editors who kept misrepresenting my intent. However, we cannot ignore the fact that big pharma dangles (💰) in front of medical practitioners and researchers all the time. They are also relentless in their attempts to bypass laws and the FDA which was part of my reason for including the off-label prescription article. The number of times big pharma has been convicted and fined for illegal activity is also significant but none of this is really in my area of interest. The world has changed and values we once held in the highest regard, such as journalistic integrity and the Hippocratic Oath, have all but fallen by the wayside, [4]. Granted, alternative medicine practitioners don't undergo the extensive schooling and training of MDs but they do have some licensing and regulatory requirements as exampled below:
- In all 50 states and the District of Columbia, chiropractors must be an accredited Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) and must pass special state exams, exams administered by the NBCE, or both.
- Only 17 states and the District of Columbia license naturopathic physicians. In general, licensure requires graduating from an accredited 4-year naturopathic school and passing a postdoctoral board examination.
- Most states regulate massage therapists by requiring a license, registration, or certification. However training standards and requirements for massage therapists vary greatly by state and locality, but most states that regulate massage therapists require a minimum of 500 hours of training. [5]
Your comment about professional standards and the like is what led me to this information. Atsme ☎️ 📧 22:35, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
MastCell, thank you for your response, and for the book recommendation. I'll check it out. You said, After all, you brought up the evils of Big Pharma in response to my attempt to draw a distinction between physicians and homeopaths. Right? No, actually, not quite. I had just seen an article about criminal actions filed against some of the big pharmaceutical companies, and couldn't understand why there aren't a whole bunch of CEOs spending time behind bars. You had also mentioned professional standards and that you weren't aware if alt-med practitioners (like homeopathy) were held to as high a standard, so I looked it up for you and posted the results. I have no clue who you are professionally so I'm not aware of what you are exposed to on a daily basis or I would have been more careful to not inundate you with more of the same. I am very happy to hear that you are suspicious of tort reform - it's the worst thing that could happen in the US because all it does is hurt victims worse than what they've already been hurt. If we must have tort reform it needs to focus on the frivolous lawsuits filed by prison inmates every year: [6]. -- Atsme 📞 📧 01:53, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
As to professional standards, the mere existence of licensing bodies means nothing. I can form a licensing body tomorrow and incorporate it tomorrow, and then start licensing people to use crystal energy to cure cancer. The real question is how these licensing bodies operate. Do they have an investigative arm to handle complaints? Do they hand down sanctions for unprofessional conduct? Are they publicly accountable? For example, you can go to pretty much any state medical board and find a mechanism to handle public complaints, a a clear description of how complaints are handled, and a full and public listing of disciplinary actions taken. (I used the Michigan Medical Board website, but you can pick a state of your choosing). Do the boards you mentioned provide this level of oversight and accountability? Because licensing alone doesn't mean anything without some sort of enforcement of professional standards. MastCell Talk 21:21, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
MastCell - I really do want to learn both sides of the argument and hope you will be generous enough of your time to help me understand. The questions you posed motivated me to do the research in that direction (in between laptop crashes and having to work on my iPad). I came across the following and was hoping you could provide input with regards to the organization: [7]. Legit from your perspective, or not? -- Atsme 📞 📧 20:49, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
State medical boards are in charge of issuing medical licenses to physicians, and the ultimate sanction that they can impose is to revoke a physician's medical license. For a physician, this is basically equivalent to being excommunicated from the profession, so it's a serious sanction. But since alt-med practitioners don't have medical licenses in the first place, the FSMB and state medical boards can't regulate them. The CAM guidelines apply to physicians who choose to offer complementary modalities as part of the their practices. (The document to which you linked makes this clear; it states upfront that it applies to physicians who either use CAM themselves or who work in partnership with CAM practitioners).
If that's tl;dr, the short version is: no, CAM practitioners are most definitely not regulated by the FSMB or by state medical boards, unless they also happen to be licensed physicians. MastCell Talk 03:38, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, MastCell. Your explanation was well-received on my end, and your time and patience are much appreciated. -- Atsme 📞 📧 18:57, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
It appears someone may have created the account User:MasfCeII to impersonate you. Do you think that is the case? Everymorning talk 02:37, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Hello. The proposed decision for the American politics 2 arbitration case, which you are listed to as a party, has been posted. Thank you, -- L235 ( t / c / ping in reply) via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 03:32, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Hi MastCell! I came across this and realized it hadn't been updated for awhile. Would you mind sharing how you generated the list? I'd be interested in keeping it updated as a subpage of WP:MED. Thanks! :) Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH) ( talk) 19:43, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
import mwclient
import sys
wp = mwclient.Site('en.wikipedia.org')
wpmed_template = wp.Pages'Template:WikiProject Medicine'
url_usage_list = wp.exturlusage("*.dailymail.co.uk", namespace=0)
dailymail_links = set()
for dm_link in url_usage_list:
dailymail_links.add(dm_link'title'])
sys.stdout.write('.')
print "\nFinished collecting Daily Mail links..."
wpmed_articles = set()
for link in wpmed_template.backlinks():
wpmed_articles.add(link.page_title)
sys.stdout.write('.')
print "\nFinished collecting WP:MED articles..."
link_articles = wpmed_articles.intersection(dailymail_links)
print "Performed intersection operation..."
print "Identified %d WP:MED articles with Daily Mail links..." % len(link_articles)
print "Listing them:"
for link in link_articles:
print "* [[%s]]" % link
Hi MastCell - I've been doing my homework and believe I have a pretty good handle on how MEDRS works now thanks to your input here and at various TP and noticeboards. There is a discussion at Project Medicine regarding Kombucha (which is subject to DS) wherein I posed a few questions to Doc James who confirmed what I believed to be true regarding the sourcing of extraordinary claims. Unfortunately, despite the lengthy discussions at both Proj Med and the article TP, the editing conflicts continue primarily as a result of tendentious editing, repeated reverts by the regular CAM-haters due to the product's claims of health benefits, and the result is noncompliance with MEDRS, V, NPOV and UNDUE. Extraordinary claims have been made in the article linking consumption of kombucha products to toxicity and death based on a handful of anecdotal random (and rare) case reports (most of which date back to the 90s) but because those case reports are cited to RS (books) that published those same reports, the reverters believe they are correct. Moreover, attempts to add factually accurate information using intext attribution from a 2014 review are also being reverted.
The highest quality source regarding kombucha is a 2014 review in Comprehensive Review in Food Science and Food Safety published by the Institute of Food Technologies. Their conclusion states:
Also, a 2013 article by Scott Gavura at Science Based Medicine concluded:
Considering there is a very small number of random case reports (most, if not all, of which are included in the 2014 review) all lacking in conclusive scientific evidence for causality, it appears to me the claims should be considered FRINGE per MEDRS, therefore not included in the lead but possibly mentioned in the body as long as it isn't given undue weight, correct? We should also use in-text attribution from the highest quality sources (the 2014 Review) that are up-to-date (not more than 5 yrs old). I don't see why Kombucha (natural ingredients) shouldn't receive the same consideration as articles like Red Bull (which is full of chemical additives) with regards to inconclusive case reports linking death and toxicity to the beverage. Your advice and attention to this matter will be greatly appreciated. -- Atsme 📞 📧 16:08, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:
For the Arbitration Committee, L235 ( t / c / ping in reply) via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 19:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
Dropped you a note to your WP email address over the weekend (sent directly instead of through Special:EmailUser/MastCell, so I hope it's still your account). Not urgent, so feel free to respond whenever you have time. NW ( Talk) 01:36, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps it wouldn't matter. Nonetheless this was not far from happening a few months ago (RfA vote was split until the candidate withdrew). Personally I would regard belief in homeopathy to be a symptom of deeper issues. Such a believer would probably be in conflict with several of Wikipedia's core policies and principles, either knowingly or unknowingly.
There is a mantra that admins don't make content decisions, but in some cases they effectively do, though in practice it usually amounts to just keeping nonsense out of Wikipedia. If an editor is consistently making edits that are in clear violation of WP:PSCI, and other avenues of dealing with the editor have been exhausted, then an admin may apply discretionary sanctions. But wait -- how did the admin know that the edits violate WP:PSCI? An admin has to "get it", so to speak. My fear is that one day an admin who doesn't get it (such as a homeopathy advocate) will wield discretionary sanctions, making determinations that are opposite to what others would make.
(There's no particular reason I'm ranting here rather than elsewhere, except that I assume you know where I'm coming from.) Manul ~ talk 01:44, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
Everymorning, "deeper issues" was merely a segue into the next sentence, which suggested exactly what your response indicates: that you are in conflict with Wikipedia's policies. It would appear that your motivation for adding these sources to the homeopathy article is found here: I often wonder if any amount of evidence would suffice to overturn or at least credibly challenge the "consensus" that homeopathy doesn't work.
It would appear that you are attempting to use Wikipedia as a tool for challenging the scientific consensus on homeopathy, which would be a misuse of Wikipedia. That you put "consensus" in quotes is alarming, the kind of evidence one would include in an AE request for a topic ban.
I don't mean to be harsh. Really. Ultimately I blame the educational system. Nobody should leave high school (I noticed your birthdate on your user page) without having some understanding about the distinction between science and pseudoscience. Not knowing can be deadly, literally. WP:FRINGE and related PAGs tend to be somewhat unapprehended for those lacking exposure to the demarcation problem. Whatever you do, please don't take the path of simply labeling others biased, parlaying ignorance into prejudice. Seek to understand the issue instead -- read The Philosophy of Pseudoscience or Nonsense on Stilts or whatever floats your boat. Manul ~ talk 03:42, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
← TenOfAllTrades speaks wisely, but I'd like to dig a little deeper into this question of the evidence on homeopathy, and how to interpret it. It's an excellent case study in Bayesian probability, clinical-trial interpretation, and common conceptual pitfalls in parsing clinical evidence. In fact, it's an example that I use didactically when I teach about these subjects. Let's start with a simple and (for now) hypothetical example.
There is a mathematical solution to this problem, of course, and we can talk about how to derive it. But the central point is qualitative. @ Everymorning: I'd like to hear your thoughts. MastCell Talk 23:50, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
MastCell's comment illustrates how the extent to which you consider homeopathy plausible hugely influences the way you view the clinical trial evidence. But as Johnson et al. noted, "Basic science research appears to suggest that the use of extremely dilute solutions may not be as implausible as has been claimed." [15] Everymorning (talk) 11:58, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
The fundamental cognitive error here—which I was trying to outline in my example above as well—is that you're treating the "homeopathy works" evidence and the "homeopathy is nonsense" evidence as if they're equally valid a priori. They're not. The former is an incredibly far-fetched extraordinary claim, which would overturn much of modern physics, chemistry, and pharmacology. You would need an exceptionally strong evidence base to even consider making that sort of claim credibly. In contrast, the view that homeopathy-is-nonsense is entirely consistent with multiple lines of evidence and basic, well-established laws of nature. It's like saying that the moon is not made of green cheese.
You can't apply the same level of scrutiny to those two claims and believe whichever one produces the better p values. I know that sounds like how science works, but it's not. What you're doing is more like rolling a 1d20 and deciding to believe in magical water if you happen to roll a 1. (Actually, it's more like rolling 20d20, and then pretending that only the rolls of 1 exist—this is the effect of publication bias and various other experimental biases in the homeopathy literature). There are useful summaries of this concept here and here (more technical), an explanation of why it's unscientific to test a completely implausible hypothesis in a randomized clinical trial here, and a specific deconstruction of the low quality of "basic science" research supporting homeopathy here. MastCell Talk 17:15, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
I suggest that MastCell and the other editors watching this page look up the research of Anisur Khuda-Bukhsh and Paolo Bellavite. I'm not saying it will change your mind about homeopathy being nonsense, but their research does indicate that there are at least a few scientists who consider it a topic worthy of studying. Everymorning (talk) 01:07, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Since you started this whole "Respect secondary sources" thing, I am inviting you to look at this Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)/FAQ#So if primary sources can be used in rare cases, what are those rare cases? and see if you can help expand the list.
(At some point we really do need to deal with the toxicology problem. As far as I can tell, there aren't any Cochrane reviews on LD50 levels, and that's still appropriate and encyclopedic information that we should be including.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 00:26, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm thinking about this again. Is there anything about respecting secondary sources that is specifically about verifiability (narrowly defined), or is it really a DUE issue? It's possible that I'll start a draft of MEDDUE sometime this decade, and I need to figure out how to separate the two concepts. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:29, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
I fully ref'd that modest edition to the CNN article. How can it be a BLP violation? Capitalismojo ( talk) 16:12, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
![]() |
The Barnstar of Diplomacy |
Well deserved. MONGO 03:51, 6 September 2015 (UTC) |
I'm saddened that you used your oppose vote to berate me, and I wonder if you have any idea of the sheer volume of attacks Montanabw made against me this year. She followed me everywhere I went, tried to recruit others to do the same, and smeared my reputation at every turn. I probably can never recover from the lies she spread about me, but I never bothered to collect all the diffs, because they made me sick to my stomach, and I just about quit Wikipedia to avoid her. Here's just the ones she made at my talk ( [19]), after having been asked politely many times to stay away. I lost count of how many times she accused me of being a sock, but she never opened an SPI like she should have. Here's a sample of what she considered evidence against me: ( [20]), ( [21]), and here's an example of her terrible judgement in general when it comes to socks: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ZuluPapa5/Archive. No matter how many people asked her to stop, she just kept coming. In fact at least nine editors asked her to leave me alone, but she persisted for months (diff available upon request).
I might have gone too far at the RfA, but if I did so it was less out of vindictiveness and more out of sincere concern for the community. The beginning was staged and timed to provide minimal challenge, and had others asked her difficult questions about her problematic behavioral patterns I would have stepped back sooner. Yes. She has lots of good qualities, but none of them pertain to adminship. I too hope she continues to create content and doesn't quit after this failed attempt, but until she stops taking sides and stalking people she is a terrible candidate for the block button, as bad as any I've seen here. RO (talk) 18:16, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
And this recent oppose: ( [22]) comes from yet another editor who MBW harassed. In this case, for a full year! RO (talk) 20:22, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for taking such a generous, civil tone in the Talk section that you and I are communicating across. It seems to me that you might have maneuvered through these kinds of discussions before... SocraticOath ( talk) 19:42, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
![]() |
The Admin's Barnstar |
I have participated on nearly 300 RfA and I know how hard it sometimes can be to make a decision. Your comment here is probably the most objective, thoughtful, and well expressed I've ever seen. Thank you. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:00, 22 September 2015 (UTC) |
The Spinningspark RFAR has been closed as declined, and I've annotated jps's log myself. (For talkpage stalkers: this message is in reference to this discussion on my page.) Bishonen | talk 14:48, 16 October 2015 (UTC).
You say on Jimbo's talk page (diff):
Let's start by acknowledging the obvious: no serious, reputable reference work on Earth would allow a member of a corporation's PR team to play a substantial role in drafting coverage of that corporation. That would be out of the question. The fact that this role is undisclosed to the casual reader makes the situation even worse.
and
If a reference work routinely allows a company's PR staff to play a substantial and undisclosed (to the casual reader) role in developing coverage of that company, I'd be very hesitant to extend credibility to that reference work.
In light of that, can you act on these edits (diff)? I've warned the user multiple times, to no avail. -- Elvey( t• c) 22:57, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
Update: Someone started a discussion here at COIN (diff) / WP:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Cleveland_Clinic. -- Elvey( t• c) 01:17, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
I feel strongly that accounts connected with the Cleveland Clinic (or any other such institution) should not be monitoring and "correcting" article content. Nor should our encyclopedic coverage of an institution be written largely or solely by that institution's PR department. These accounts should be restricted to making suggestions on the talkpage. Our conflict-of-interest guideline is quite clear about this, but no one pays any attention.
At the same time, I'm not interested in intervening here. For one thing, the community is utterly clueless about COI (in some cases out of well-meaning ignorance, and in some cases for less charitable reasons). That cluelessness extends all the way up to ArbCom, so getting involved in addressing a COI complaint isn't appealing. More to the point, I work in medicine and, while I don't work at the Cleveland Clinic, I have personal and professional connections there, as I do at a number of academic medical centers. For that reason, I generally avoid editing articles about these institutions, as a matter of practicing what I preach. Good luck, though. MastCell Talk 15:57, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi {user:MastCell}, I recently came across a clinical guideline written about inducing fetal demise that mentions the incidence of unintended live birth in abortion patients, including D&E patients. Would you be willing to use the reference to add words to the [Abortion] article answering the question, "When does unintended live birth happen?" This is the publication: http://www.societyfp.org/_documents/resources/InductionofFetalDemise.pdf Thanks! - 146.23.3.250 ( talk) 16:16, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
You are terribly biased and to prove it I will share a diff of you taking the opposite position of the one you're supposed to be biased towards. O-kay then. -- JBL ( talk) 21:25, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
For some reason, it looks like I forgot to actually post to your talk page. There's a current unblock request at User_talk:Johnpacklambert#Second_Unblock_Request that seems to meet your requirements. Would an unblock or reduction in block length be acceptable? Keep in mind that actual arbitration enforcement could be used if the problematic behavior continues now that the user has been warned. -- slakr\ talk / 15:15, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for this. I hope no small forest creatures were harmed after you read those edit summaries :) The best way to catch one is to cut a hole in the ice and place peas around the perimeter. Then when he comes to take a pea you kick him in the ice hole. — ArtifexMayhem ( talk) 12:10, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
...but I did notice your comments here about my old RfA and went back to the bit you linked. I am sincerely curious about the issue (access to the block button) that tipped the balance for you and how to address that concern, which was echoed by a number of other people. I do plan to try again, probably in the spring, so how do I, in essence, prove a negative? While some of the other reasons folks !voted oppose were legit complaints, this is the #1 problem I don't know how to address - because it's not a problem! I said up front in my original statements that I truly believe in recusal where I would be involved, but how can I convince folks of what is a sincerely held value when it's a power I am asking for, not one I've used. Is there some way I can create an analogous track record or create a "contract" with other editors? One solution I thought of was to have an on-wiki list on a subpage of editors who I would not act upon based on prior content editing interactions (good and bad) but some might think that's an "enemies list". Another idea would be to be open to recall, but recall is totally voluntary and so in reality I think it is just drama fodder. Given that you and I will, most likely, disagree sometimes, perhaps strongly, yet I think you would agree that there is a desperate need for adult admins who have a lot of content editing experience, how could someone like me reassure someone like you on this issue? What are your thoughts? Montanabw (talk) 00:41, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Honestly, if you ran again I would probably support you. Every passing month I'm more depressed about the lack of sane adults here. You are a sane adult. I think the concerns have been communicated, and you've heard them, and I think (being that you're a sane adult) you'll bear them in mind. I can't speak to how to reassure others; RfA is an unpredictable process. The only thing I'd suggest is tackling the issue upfront in your next request for adminship. Acknowledging the concern goes a long way toward defusing it, and it's better to do it upfront; it's very hard to respond and be heard over the din once the actual RfA picks up steam. Best of luck and happy holidays. :) MastCell Talk 01:30, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
Here: [25] Jdontfight ( talk) 20:33, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
OK, you are one of the MEDRS gurus, and I would value input from a neutral person who hasn't been involved in this situation: I am trying to work out some difficulties at several animal- and equine-therapy articles. I feel that what I am presenting is being dismissed out of hand. Discussion is all over the place, (two user talk pages, the fringe theories noticeboard and five different articles) but the summary of the drama is here. I actually DO want to have properly balanced articles with good sources. But the usual personal attacks (I'm "owning" articles, blah, blah) are not exactly creating a collaborative environment. I actually agree with some of the other editors' assertions that the articles need improvement, but my concern is replacing one set of weak reasoning (breathless promotionalism) with another (it's all is "bogus" and "pseudoscience"). Equine-assisted therapies have legitimate concerns that studies have not been particularly well-designed, but I am concerned that the entire field of animal-assisted therapy is somehow being dismissed as having "no good evidence" to support that it is beneficial. (Obviously, some claims are pretty well established, but others are flaky; I get that). I'm particularly trying to figure out how to handle the equine-assisted psychotherapy topic (the medical benefits of therapeutic horseback riding are somewhat better studied and I think there is actual progress happening on that article). At this point, the discussion probably has come down to how we use MEDRS and related guidelines-- particularly when there are still mostly preliminary, early studies with the "more research needed" tag. Specifically, how do we use a fairly negative meta-analysis that looked at 14 studies (and they legitimately found problems, but I also think the writers nonetheless hit the panic button with their conclusions) against a broader and more favorable literature review that looked at 47 studies; and both referenced an earlier review of 14 studies that reached a cautiously optimistic conclusion. (FWIW, [27], [28] and [29] I'll end this now, it's getting tl;dr. Any input will probably help. Montanabw (talk) 09:55, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
Accepting arguendo your characterization of Rubio's position (which I believe is mostly true), I thought I might try, perhaps vainly, to help you comprehend the incomprehensible: Disagreement with a portion of X does not constitute disagreement with all of X. The strength of the connection between human activity and climate change is a portion of the modern scientific understanding of climate change, but it is does not constitute the entire such understanding. Therefore, I would have no problem with a statement that "Rubio believes that part of the modern understanding of climate change is unproven." None at all. And a statement that "Rubio believes that part of the modern understanding of climate change is false" would be, to me, pushing the envelope slightly, but only slightly. But the actual statement in the article is another matter altogether. That's the problem. CometEncke ( talk) 22:05, 19 January 2016 (UTC) Also, I put this in the edit summary, but I want to put it into the edit -- this is not intended as a nastygram. It's simply an explanation. My experience with threaded discussion in RfC's is that it is worse than useless. So I'm putting it here. CometEncke ( talk) 22:07, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
(Separately, Rubio is in an interesting political position with regard to climate change. He backed a cap-and-trade proposal back in 2008 or so, when the Republican Party was more open to the reality of climate change, and at a time when cap-and-trade was part of Republican orthodoxy. But then Obama embraced cap-and-trade and, predictably, it went from the Republicans' favored public-policy solution to absolute anathema. Now Rubio has to distance himself from his 2008 support of climate change, much like Romney in 2012 had to distance himself from his earlier advocacy for health-insurance mandates—which underwent a similar rapid transition from Republican orthodoxy to anathema. I'm not sure whether these were intentional strategies on Obama's part, but they've definitely put many of the Republican candidates in an awkward situation. But I digress). MastCell Talk 00:45, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
I was wondering if I could bounce some thoughts off you? I've seen that you've been involved in climate change and other science articles that can get a bit controversial. In many of those articles, a statement that there's a scientific consensus always seems to draw a huge push from those wanting to support the fringe point of view claiming there isn't a consensus. We get into behavior territory when editors consistently try to push those points of views pretty well characterized by WP:ADVOCACY to the point it's a significant drain on other editors. That's tough to manage from an admin or ArbCom perspective because it's behavior closely tied to content instead of personal attacks, etc. that are more obvious to those uninvolved.
If we do end up at ArbCom with GMO-2 (which I hope we don't) I'd like to potentially set up a proposal for dealing with this nuance (decent chance of flopping, but worth addressing). I've been thinking that the climate change cases would have some good precedent on how they deal with this specific kind of behavior related to scientific consensus and general advocacy. There's a lot to sort through though, and I haven't found centralized discussion on this as most cases and remedies deal with long hanging fruit like battleground, personal attacks, etc. Are you aware of any focused cases on this or someone else I should ask that has some good history and recall in the topic? No worries if you don't. Thanks. Kingofaces43 ( talk) 19:47, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Hello MastCell you recently topic banned me. However you base your decision on, as you wrote:
pattern of disruptive editing on the part of Prokaryotes is clear and continuing. This pattern includes disruptive stonewalling on talkpages, misuse of sourcing guidelines, edit-warring, personal attacks, and so on
Besides EdJonhnson suggested 3-7 day ban, without my 1RR revert. I am unaware of disruptive editing, what you call stonewalling, sourcing guidelines, edit warring, and personal attacks. As long as i am on Wikipedia i was never accused of a personal attack, stonewalling, or misuse of sourcing guidelines. Also you are the first to claim my edits are disruptive or that i edit war in the current talk page discussion. Therefore i ask you to provide difs so i can follow up on your reasoning. And because i think you are wrong, therefore ask you to reconsider your admin decision at Arbcom. Thanks. prokaryotes ( talk) 21:02, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
The edit-warring is obvious; among other things, you violated the 1RR restriction and then, when called on it, responded combatively by attacking other editors on the page rather than acknowledging the error (to your credit, you ultimately chose to self-revert after being urged to do so). There was evidence presented, primarily by Tryptofish, in the case request of your inappropriate and tendentious approach to sourcing. I believe you when you say you are "unaware" that you are doing these things, which is a big part of the problem. I don't see any evidence that you have insight into why your editing causes problems, despite getting that feedback from ArbCom, from your fellow editors, from admins, and so on. All of those things, taken together, led me to issue the topic ban.
Given the behavioral issues in this topic area, we should be demanding and expecting best behavior from its editors, rather than making endless excuses for them. I don't think it's even anywhere near a borderline call to say that you have been a long-standing negative influence in the topic area. That is not to say you're the only editor contributing to the problem, but your presence has clearly worsened the situation at virtually every turn. Hence the topic ban. You are welcome to raise the issue with other admins or at WP:AE, and I'll go along if others think the sanction was disproportionate. But your defense—which basically boils down to refusing to admit the existence of any concerns about your editing, ever—is not exactly persuasive. MastCell Talk 01:53, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
"… and to help shoulder the workload, which is among the most challenging on Wikipedia". [33] Tell me about it. The technicalities, which one would think ought to be nothing, the weight of a feather, are vultures hacking at the liver, they're malignant living things. Check out this. You don't have to find the time and wherewithal to respond thoughtfully, just scream. Bishonen | talk 21:23, 5 February 2016 (UTC).
← What's happening now, in the WP:AN thread on Prokaryotes' appeal, is a perfect illustration of the problem. The appeal itself is a foregone conclusion: when has a deeply entrenched battleground editor ever passed up a chance to argue? At a glance, about 80% of the verbiage in the appeal comes from partisan GMO editors, most of whom already had their say at disruptive and disputatious length in the original WP:AE thread. There is uninvolved input, but it's hard to see amid the same yelling from the same people.
I suppose I should go defend myself, but I really don't want to. I don't want to reward this system. This is why admins don't act on WP:AE, and why they especially avoid decisive action on difficult cases involving entrenched battleground editors. Prokaryotes and his enablers will never give up on fighting this. I will be responding to appeals for the foreseeable future, and defending myself against all manner of poorly-thought-out and unsupported accusations. If I choose not to respond (the most reasonable choice, I think, in the circumstances), then I'll be accused of failing to be "accountable". You can see that one GMO partisan, Minor4th, already raised the specter of hauling me in front of ArbCom to pay for the crime of sanctioning Prokaryotes.
The charge of acting unilaterally is particularly laughable; the thread sat open for more than a week with no other admin input, and I finally closed it out of a sense of fairness to both the accuser and the accused (they deserve speedier resolution of the complaint). If I wanted to act unilaterally, then I wouldn't have begged for other admins to comment and then left the thread open for more than a week. I don't know why any sane person would want to deal with this system as it exists now. MastCell Talk 20:24, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I've also seen a lot of arguing about people exceeding the word limit in ArbCom cases. These arguments seem to spring from the misconception that more words are inherently more convincing. Personally, I've always found the reverse to be true. We don't really need clerks to enforce word limits; the penalty for writing walls of text is that people stop paying attention to what you have to say.
Regarding the open cases, I don't think I'm directly "involved" with CFCF, but we do overlap in a lot of topic areas (as well as on WP:MEDRS), so I'm leaving it for someone else. Likewise, I don't think I'm formally "involved" with SageRad, but since his main motivation for coming to Wikipedia was perpetuate a feud with David Gorski by inserting BLP violations into his biography, I steer clear and let others handle him. MastCell Talk 15:58, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the link - it has inspired me to dig in and start reviewing my stats! EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' ( talk) 01:45, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
← @ EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin': Since we're talking statistics, I was curious to quantify exactly how badly the homeopaths did on this multiple-choice test. At right is a simple binomial distribution modeling the outcomes if one were to simply guess randomly on the stats quiz that was administered to the homeopaths. (There were 20 questions; nine of them had 5 possible answers, and the remaining eleven had 4 possible answers, so the overall probability of guessing the correct answer on a given question is 0.2275).
The homeopaths, as a group, got 5% of the questions right (that is, 1 out of 20). As you can see from the binomial distribution, if one were simply guessing at random on every question, there's only a 3.9% chance of doing that badly (in other words, the cumulative probability of getting 0 or 1 answer correct is 0.03946).
In layman's terms, when it comes to tests of statistical know-how and sophistication, a homeopath will lose to a random-number generator 96% of the time. Put another way, when a statistical question arises, you would be much better off trusting a random-number generator or a coin flip than trusting a homeopath. MastCell Talk 19:54, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Greetings. I've just moved the File:Koebner.jpg to File:Heinrich Köbner.jpg to unshadow the Commons file. That said there is a page in your userpage which is fully protected linking to the old filename. You may want to update the filelink so that it doesn't point at the wrong image. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 17:37, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Meet the internet hoax buster – "Now you can go to Wikipedia and become an expert on an ailment in 20 minutes. Then you go online and instantly find a supportive community." What a service! . . dave souza, talk 21:28, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
A happy addition to WP, but I think could use your love and might be of interest to you. Was recently created by Sunrise. Jytdog ( talk) 18:42, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Actually, if I were feeling puckish, I'd just redirect social psychology and Daryl Bem to the article on p-value fallacy... that would say it all. :P MastCell Talk 20:36, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Many thanks for bringing that little episode to a resolution. Since you expressed a willingness to tease apart the issue between Volunteer Marek and Solnsta90, and address the revenge edits/hounding if you can find the time, I thought I might tell you that Marek and Dave Dial have discussed this issue at some length at User talk:Drmies. I also raised the issue myself with Drmies, just before I saw that you had taken action at ANI, because the sheer amount of disruption caused by what should have been a simple sock blocking (had it been raised in the right way) makes me share Drmies' disposition that this might be ArbCom bound. Anyway, thought you might want to be aware of Marek and Dave's diffs on the talk page, but I know quite happily wash my hands of this nasty little affair. Snow let's rap 20:29, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
I saw WP:Requests for undeletion/Archive 223#Einstein Syndrome I weighed in at the DRV.
I noticed something in the restored deletion history. You both were the nominator at the article's only AFD -- and you were the administrator who speedy deleted a version of that article as G4.
When I looked at the revision history it seems to show the version you deleted was rewritten, from scratch. Diff says forty contributors made 77 edits to the article.
I think you are fully entitled to reach the conclusion that the second version, rewritten from scratch, had all the same weaknesses that caused you to call for the first version to be deleted -- but that your best choices would have been to, first, raise your concerns on the talk page, only then initiate a second afd. I may be incorrect, but I strongly suspect that just about everyone will agree you should not have speedy deleted a G4, when you were the original nominator.
I am going to ping @ Lectonar:, who wrote, at DRV: "I always read G4 as being applicable when the new article was near enough the old article as to have (virtually) the some content; that is what I saw here." Lectonar also speedy deleted a version of this article, as did @ Liz: and @ Favonian:. Geo Swan ( talk) 21:37, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
I don't remember anything about the article. If I deleted it under G4, then you can be sure that it appeared to me to be, in substance, a copy of the previously and properly deleted article from the time of the AfD. I don't agree with your assessment of the administrative role; if an article is properly deleted at AfD, and then recreated in substantially similar form, then any admin may speedy-delete it under G4, regardless of whether they participated in or closed the AfD. It would help if you distinguished "I don't agree with your application of G4" from "you have NO RIGHT to apply G4!", because those are different arguments, and one is much more plausible than the other.
Anyway, you presumably got what you wanted—the article was restored. So you probably have better things to do than to badger me over a difference of opinion about a speedy deletion from 3 years ago (like, maybe, improving the restored article, which badly needs it). And I definitely have better things to do than to be badgered. MastCell Talk 07:04, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
The encyclopedia project for sane, constructive, marginally mature, well-socialized editors. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 19:39, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi MastCell. In accordance with an arbitrator's request by email, I have
removed a portion of your statement at an arbitration case request that contains a personal attack, and you are also advised that under the
arbitration policy, the arbitration clerks
have the authority to impose sanctions for conduct on arbitration pages, and warned that continued personal attacks may lead to sanctions. Appeal of this removal or warning may be made to clerks-llists.wikimedia.org or arbcom-l
lists.wikimedia.org. Thanks.
Kevin (aka
L235 ·
t ·
c)
01:03, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Someone created endometrial cups, which is a useful article to have, but it was a stub. I added refs and expanded it, but because my background in medical terminology is not that extensive, some of the source material was gibberish to me. Would value your popping by and seeing if my use of source material was accurate (trying to not closely paraphrase but still be accurate can be a bugbear on these articles) and if the content in general is phrased properly. I've also pinged a couple other editors with medical backgrounds, but thought of you because of the thing about how these cells behave a bit like metastatic tumors. Also, the article on Equine chorionic gonadotropin might need some work. I'm unclear if there is a direct connection to human medicine here, but that's also why I'm pinging the experts. Have at it. Montanabw (talk) 14:53, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others. The scope of this case is Gamaliel's recent actions (both administrative and otherwise), especially related to the Signpost April Fools Joke. The case will also examine the conduct of other editors who are directly involved in disputes with Gamaliel. The case is strictly intended to examine user conduct and alleged policy violations and will not examine broader topic areas. The clerks have been instructed to remove evidence which does not meet these requirements. The drafters will add additional parties as required during the case. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others/Evidence.
Please add your evidence by May 2, 2016, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamaliel and others/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. This notification is being sent to those listed on the case notification list. If you do not wish to recieve further notifications, you are welcome to opt-out on that page. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 13:39, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
I'm not going to keep posting there tonight as I'm bordering on disruptive. Although I feel like I'm challenging established thought patterns, I can see how others feel it's disruption. Can you point out which aspect of Gamaliel's actions were actually DHeyward's fault? Was it the original "April Fools" joke? The userbox? Reverting at ANI? Reverting at Signpost? Removing the CSD tag? Which part of it did DHeyward make Gamaliel do? All of it? Because if anyone is going to make the argument that Gamaliel was so provoked by DHeyward's actions that he couldn't control himself, then they've also made an argument for why Gamaliel is, and was, WP:involved. Once you cross the line of emotional attachment to a topic, you're no longer enforcing just Wikipedia's policies. There is no way to argue that Gamaliel was provoked by DHeyward and argue that he is uninvolved. That's not possible.--v/r - T P 04:21, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
I don't pretend to have followed the case closely (every time I start to read it, I despair for humanity), but it seems pretty straightforward: a couple of editors winding each other up and behaving childishly. I don't see that any lasting (or even temporary) harm was done to the project, so the reaction seems disproportionate, to say the least. The discourse on the case pages exhibits some of the absolute worst qualities of the Wikipedia "community": lazy knee-jerk conspiracism, sanctimonious hypocrisy, and the lack of anything resembling a sense of perspective. MastCell Talk 21:13, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Which brings me to my concern. If gamergate is not being considered in this Arbcase, then why is DHeyward involved? The only reason I can see is if DHeyward's gamergate behavior would be used to argue that Gamaliel was baited. But if that's the case, then why is gamergate material only be considered when it benefits Gamaliel? Do you now see my concern?--v/r - T P 01:52, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
(To be clear, this isn't aimed at you. I've always found you to be thoughtful and willing to discuss anything, and to reconsider your views. I also think you always try to do the right thing, and I have a lot of respect for you. I just don't feel like talking about this case anymore). MastCell Talk 04:28, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
I read your list of articles days ago which is where my "I'd be very interested in what types of BLPs the community finds it acceptable to mock" comes from. Do you have any BLPs that are not conservatives that we mock frequently? Because aside from this, I'm looking again at Campaign for "santorum" neologism.--v/r - T P 17:27, 12 May 2016 (UTC)